Other What's ruining your life right now?

Bushfires....

Eastern coastline of of NSW is basically on fire. Family friends and family affected by it. We had a favourable winds last night which helped bring many of them under control but there is expected catastrophic conditions on Tuesday..



Fortunately I am about an hour south of it but the sky here has had a blanket of smoke for the last week...

 

The wildfire problem just seems to be getting worse and worse for you and California. My dad is in Aus but, fortunately, way out west in Perth.

 

yeah its bad.... we have friends in the RFS doing all they can. One of them is a driver that was trying to get to a lady that was trapped. They didnt make it as they couldnt get through, even running their full suppression system on the trucks it was impassable. She is only in her 20's and is devastated because they tried everything they could to get to her.

My sister is now on also on alert and is preparing her horses for transport down the coast

it has also just been declared a catastrophic fire danger and to action your bushfire plans. ( first time since 2009 for sydney )

 

Another Lap around my Depression Cycle, another group of friends rejection

i Suffer with Depression, Autism anxiety among others, this has left me broken, without no friends and autism means i struggle alot socially

the Circle is as followed

i start out alone, and in a sevre depression, to the point im struggling to resist urges of Self harm and suicide, so i try to find a Distraction to keep my mind off such thoughs
my Autism then kicks in, and the distraction, becomes a near obsession, and i play the game to death in the first few days
my lonliness and social isolation and desperation to be 'normal' and have friends causes me to reach out into the community of said Distraction, this causes a few weeks / months of semi-stability
eventually however, i burnout, badly. once this happens i struggle to keep going, to keep playing and to keep masking ( pretending im normal by hyper analysing everything that is said and done in a given social situation, which considering im autistic and miss ALOT of social cues, unwritten words and basically 90% of non direct verbal speech ( such as Sarcasm, rhetorical questions, tone of voice and such )
eventually an incident happens, it can me a misunderstanding, a Sarcastic remark mistaken, a prank gone wrong, an off the cuff remark or any number of social misunderstandings caused by Autism, social paranoia, burnout and such
Autistic black and white thinking then takes over, if its not good its bad, it is either / or for everything, and my mind runs faster than i could hope to keep up with.
often this Causes the Group Leaders / server or clan owners to become involved, my deteriorating mental state not exactly playing out well for the group, these Leaders look for Empathy, guilt or whatever, which ( being autistic ) i very much struggle with ( there is a pervasive steriotype Aspies do not feel Empathy ), but not just because of the autism, but because as a child, EVERYTHING in my household was my fault, and my dad would force an apology out of me ( even if i had nothing to do with whatever he had decided to lose his temper at ) and then he would simply knock 7 shades of crap out of me, which STILL gives me night terrors and panic attacks when i feel guilty or sorry and my brain defaults to self injure to deal with it, because it knows no other way
sometimes the first issue is forgiven on their side, but the Mistake, runs around and around in my head, are they just pretending to like me ?, they called me this or that inevitably this causes the next step

Rejection, they decide my issues / needs / problems are too much for them to deal with, so they kick me out / ban me from whatever activity was holding my mental state together, this causes immense depression is is usually at the point in the cycle where i self injure the worst

the ban message usually equates to, we are not banning you for your Autism, we are banning you for *insert Autism Trait here* ( be it the social ineptitude, the constant need to take breaks to keep focus, the physically self stimulatiory behaviour such as rocking or flapping, or the Meltdowns / seizures that occour when im overstimulated. i have literally been banned from a gaming group for going afk while having a seizure, and i can understand me dissapearing for two hours is an inconvienence to them, but considering i split my head open on my desk while falling, then almost dislocated my Thumb because i didnt manage to get it out of my fist when my hands clamped down on it

the rejection then feeds both the Social Paranoia and the Depression, for the next group of 'friends' and i can understand my social screw ups are annoying to deal with, but please to understand how hard it is for me, knowing time and again i screw up, social lessions you guys learned when you were 5, i still dont understand, you go through one screw up, i got though 2 or 3 every year, and for you its one 'fiend' gone, for me, its an entire community turning its back on me with dozens of people all ending that friendship because of my issues. i know im 95% of the problem, i just dont know how to be 'Fixed' ( and givern its a learning disability that causes a large majority of my problems im not sure it can be 'fixed' just managed )

The rejection, then causes me to go back to the start, with another loop now complete in need of another Distraction, i keep track of it all in my diary, in the last few years ive been through this loop 17 different times with different groups, from Pubg, to Minecraft, sometimes multiple times in the same game with different groups / Clans ( looking at you World of Tanks ) but sometimes the Rejection is so severe i simply cannot go back to the game

 

Not wanting to sound patronising so apologies if I do.
Have you tried other outlets other than gaming?
Are you being proactive about trying to deal with some of those issues from your childhood?

 

So. Either the PS2 port on my PC is dead, or... My beloved Model M keyboard is dead.

I am desperately hoping it's the former.

I have a backup Model M - a terminal version that I converted to USB - but I'm really hoping my main one is still working. My backup keyboard needs a lot of springs replacing, it's the kind of thing I can live with as a backup but would drive me crazy if it was a daily driver. Replacing the springs is not a simple job...

EDIT: Time to go find out...

 

Sounds like my life. As usual I always blame myself, even if I was clearly in the right because I hate the whole "I am right and you are by default wrong" philosophy and I go through patterns too. It took me years to learn how not to be banned by power hungry people.

There was a good article in cpc about it as it goes. By some young lady, and how people given these "jobs" of power are never vetted beforehand. They just kiss bum to get to the top and then feel in a position of responsibility and power.

What I'm saying is dude don't keep blaming yourself. I'm not condoning being an arrogant arsehole either, but do know that you are what you are and people should accept you for it. Just like being coloured or homosexual it's who you are and people banning you because of your differences are discriminating against you and are wrong.

Not that your autism is an excuse of course. It's a reason.

I hope that like racism and homophobia this will be addressed very soon.

If you want to vent pm me dude. I can't promise I'll always be there as right now I'm pretty much catatonic and have spent 8 days in bed, but I will understand.

 

i do have other outlets, building models and playing music mainly, but they do feel rather hollow as i socialise worse irl than online ( mainly because with my constant rocking, leg bouncing and flapping playing an instrument isnt that easy, and people do give alot of funny looks in public and it makes me VERY self conscious about it, so i ether concentrate to suppress the Stimming, which is very costly spoon wise, or have people stare, which is also costly spoon wise

im being as proactive as i can about it, ive been seeing therapists most of my life, but its quite difficult to untangle the Web of issues, especially as there seems to be somewhat of a disconnect with the NHS, the Learning disabilities team say i need more help from the Mental health side of things, and the mental health groups are like, well you have autism, im not trained to support you with that, so imma refer you to the Learning disabilities team, who are then like 'why are you back here, we referred you over there to get help' so i end up having to try to educate the mental health team on Autism, so they have a hope of understanding how it affects everything else ( for instance, i was givern a test for Borderline Personality disorder as i fit most of the parameters, but where Emotional instability is one of the key points of BPD, as an Aspie i tend to be hyper logical, monotone and try to tune out my emotions. so its pretty slow progress, and often leaves me very frustrated at the system. ive had CTE mentioned a few times as well ( which is highly worrying ) as i do fit alot of the tick-marks in both behavioural patterns and alot of the causes of it ( mainly repeated blows to the head )

as odd as it sounds im better than i was during my teenage years in terms of my emotional stability, but my old 'go to' of music isnt helping as it once did, i just kinda feel my life is in a bit of a freefall limbo at the moment

 

I requested a new psychiatrist over a month ago because he refused to give me something for my anxiety. Instead he gave me a new mood stabilizer which is not what I needed.

I complained. A month later and I have the sum total of nothing. Docs can't help, autism trust workers are doing what they can, social worker can't help and here I am now physically jammed by anxiety. I literally can't move. To the point I'm completely suicidal yet not depressed one bit.

A month of cold turkey. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Tonight I have to go home like it or not. I'm absolutely terrified.

Like I said in my earlier post there needs to be more accepting and understanding. I'm going through anxiety. I know it's anxiety, and I know after 46 years what I need. You *dare* tell a psychiatrist what you *need*. He'll give you what he thinks you need even if it's completely wrong because he simply doesn't listen to you.

They think I'm too stupid to understand my feelings lmao.

 

Well, there's nothing obviously wrong here - no popped caps, no dry joints, etc.



Except this



There is some nasty corrosion going on there

Luckily, replacement membranes are only $10 from Unicomp. Unluckily however, that means 'bolt-modding' the backplate. TL;DR: shear off the plastic welds holding the switch assembly frame to the steel support plate, drill through the plastic frame where the welds used to be, and replace the welds with nuts & bolts. To be honest, it's probably worth it in the long run to keep these old things going. Without a hint of hyperbole intended, they are the best damn keyboards I have ever used.

 

I don't think I've seen one of those in the wild to be honest. My gut tells me they're probably a lot more expensive than even the Model M!

 

Anger threw my phone and glasses earlier, not prone to anger like it but today's tipped it over. Phone now wont charge an my glasses don't seem to sit right. I just give up

 

God i feel you on that,

 

Just due to start my 4th interview of the day, 7th one out of a total of 8 for this job. Its currently 9pm at night and my interviews wont finish until 1 am.

I'm basically taking it from the corporate man right to the elbow!

 

... bent over a huge rock & being expected to smile for the duration...?

 

Yeesh better be one heck of a job!

 

I hope so, potentially career defining and would hopefully open up the option of four figure day rates in senior SAP consulting roles in 3-4 years.

 

Fingers crossed, mate! How did it go? And, maybe more importantly, when did it end?